Let me know when you’re coming up and I can free up some time if you want company. I though my e-mail was on my TFR profile, will have to check that. It’s [email protected].

Cheers!

Sorry guys, I’ve lived here a year and my only day on soft water on the river was out of a canoe. Had a little musky on and my wife caught a 5 lb pike. So when it comes to open water on the river, I’m sucking up info instead of providing it. I’m especially interested in finding a few musky and smallmouth haunts. Done a fair amount of ice fishing on a couple Wisconsin-side inlets of the St. Louis, though. Best day there was about 10 crappies from 11 to 14 inches, half a dozen perch to 1.25 pounds. Tends to be fairly slow but steady action.

Yup, I thought it was pretty funny, and I took the comments as jokes.

I don’t know what max hp that boat’s rated for. I’d think you could go up to a 50 hp, either 2 or 4 stroke (really recommend 4 stroke), if you plan to back troll to get your 2 to 2.5 mph. I’ve got an old Johnson 35hp 2 stroke on my 16-foot deep V Lund, and it’ll only troll down to 2.5 mph going forward. Really want a 4 stroke, been out with guys who have them, but don’t want to part with the bucks.

Some of you guys with 4 strokes, can you troll down slower with a higher hp model than with 2 strokes because 4 strokes run smoother?

I’ve got an original Lowrance greenbox, the portable battery-operated flasher, that’s in excellent shape. Maybe a little too basic for what you’re looking for, but drop me an e-mail if interested. It was one of the last one built in the 80s, according to the serial number, so it’s not all that old. I’d guess you could use a radiator hose clamp or similar to clamp transducer to motor.

Hmm, bass tasting like crap? I’ve eaten lots of largemouths, mostly 1.5 pounders or so. Not in recent years, as I’ve been pretty much strictly catch-and-release on bass. It’s true they aren’t as good as pike or pannies (I’d include walleyes, but they’re so bland they don’t taste like anything except what you put on them, which is why Norwegians like them so much) but these bass tasted really good. They all came out of clear northern Minnesota lakes, and I wonder if that’s what makes them taste different from the Big Miss bass.

The waters I fish are flush with crayfish. Haven’t killed a bass for the past several years, but the ones I did in years past ALL had crayfish in them. So I’ve gone to crayfish patterns in the Rapala Rattlin’ Raps (discontinued), medium sized Husky Jerks (gold/orange) and any lipped crank in crayfish colors that gets me down where I need to go. Lots of walleyes fall to the Husky Jerk and Rattlin’ Raps, too. So no single favorate crank, but those three are the biggies for me.

Yeah, it’s true. I learned that one the hard way. Spooled an Ambassadeur 6500 with fireline and when I tried to adjust the drag, I couldn’t get it tight enough. Called a reel repair guy who was stumped, but then when he realized I had on a fused line or superbraid he told me it’ll continue to slip around the spool. Two ways to stop that. One is to wrap it a few times and then run some tape around it. I use the other way, which is to start with mono, as you heard, then blood-knot on the superline. Coupla hints. When you make the initial loop in the fused line to start the blood knot, double it. Mono can cut itself on a blood knot against a single loop of braid or fused. Also, the superlines I use seem to consistently come in 125 to 150 yard spools.Since I’m usually spooling line with a 12 lb diamater (25 lb test) on a 5500 or a 6500, it would take way more than 150 yards to spool it the whole way, and what a waste of line and money. So I spool it to what I think is about 150 yards short of full capacity using mono or the old-fashioned dacron braided line (cheap, never wears out), then fasten on the superbraid or fused line. Also, I really wrap the fused lines hard, since they’re not quite round. Althoug I hear the newest superbraids and fused lines are round, and that should make the reel spools turn consistently and cut down on backlashes.

Good luck.

I’ve been using fireline and fusion on my Ambassadeur 5500s and 6500s for about three years. So far it’s worked great, casting as well. One tip. Usually, you adjust the spool tension so, when a lure drops straight down toward the water on freespool, it stops when it hits the water. I tighten the tension just a hair more than that. I think the reason there are occasionally some backlash problems is the superlines aren’t completely round, like mono, so they lay differently on the spool. When you cast and the spool spins, it slows and speeds up as the line pulls out through deeper peaks and valleys on the spool than mono has.

We’ve fixed white bass a lot. Usually, we’ll grill them skin-side-down in tin foil, or do the same thing in the oven broiler with butter, lemon and spices. They’re wonderful, although a lot of the people who caught them in Devils Lake (N.D.), where we caught ours, said they taste like crap. We never bothered to cut out the dark meat either, and it was just fine.

Yes